World Russia: Entire team of 387 athletes will be banned from competing at the Rio Olympics as punishment

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The entire Russian Olympic team will today be banned from competing at the Rio Games next month, The Mail on Sunday understands.

According to well-placed sources, the International Olympic Committee will punish all 387 Russian sportsmen and women in the strongest possible way after revelations of their country’s state-sponsored doping programme shocked the world.

The country’s corrupt track and field stars have already been banned from the Games, and last week lost a desperate legal challenge to overturn that decision.

But today’s ruling – the most momentous in Olympic history – will see Russia’s medal hopes in cycling, judo, wrestling and all other disciplines excluded from competition in the wake of the scandal.

The controversy involved President Vladimir Putin’s sports ministry handing out cocktails of steroids and covering up tainted urine samples ahead of the 2012 London Olympics.

Read more here. (Daily Mail UK)

 

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Refuted: Rio Olympics 2016: Russia not given blanket Games ban by IOC

Russia will not receive a blanket ban from Rio 2016 following the country's doping scandal.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) will leave it up to individual sports' governing bodies to decide if Russian competitors are clean and should be allowed to take part.

The decision follows a report in which Canadian law professor Richard McLaren said Russia operated a state-sponsored doping programme from 2011 to 2015.

The Rio Games start on 5 August.

Competitors from Russia who want to take part in the Games will have to meet strict criteria laid down by the IOC.

Any Russian who has served a doping ban will not be eligible for next month's Olympics. Track and field athletes have already been banned.

IOC president Thomas Bach said: "We have set the bar to the limit by establishing a number of very strict criteria which every Russian athlete will have to fulfil if he or she wants to participate in the Olympic Games Rio 2016.

Read more here. (BBC)